LibertasPost

Here’s a speech I delivered at a MacDonald-Cartier Society event held to discuss the topic: The conservative movement at the crossroads.

It’s a great pleasure for me to be speaking here at the first-ever MacDonald-Cartier Society event.

I am sure, by the way, that both MacDonald and Cartier would be happy to know their names are now associated with something besides a boring highway.

Also I would like to thank Waller for his introduction, but I must say I was a little disappointed and even a little upset that he didn’t mention my best trait: my boyish good looks.

It’s true. It’s thanks to my boyish good looks that people are always assuming that I am younger than I really am.

Well, tonight I am here to give you the cold, hard truth – I am old.

I am so old, in fact, that I have been fighting for free enterprise and less government and individual freedom for nearly 25 years.

That’s a long time.

But the good thing about being old – (and it’s the only good thing) is that it gives you a sense of perspective.

And tonight I want to give you my perspective on Canada’s conservative movement – where it has been, where it is now and where it needs to go in the future.

First however, let me confess that I am a little intimidated about appearing with the other speakers on this panel, men who are extremely intelligent.

I am not an expert in economic theory and I am not well versed in the philosophic underpinnings of libertarian and conservative thought.

Basically I am a PR hack. In fact, my chief job when I worked at the National Citizens Coalition was to figure out ways to compare MPs to barnyard animals.

But I am also a political warrior. And I truly enjoy engaging in ideological combat.

And I guess that’s why I liked working at the NCC – which was once Canada’s leading small “c” conservative organization.

When I started working there way back in 1985, the NCC was not a big organization, it didn’t have lots of money and it didn’t have much of a media presence.

But what the NCC did have in those days was heart, it had a fighting spirit, it had the determination to fight the good fight no matter the odds, no matter the results, no matter the consequences.

Plus we were lucky that tens of thousands of Canadians were willing to support us. And NCC supporters came from across the entire conservative political spectrum – we had fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, libertarians, populists and neo-conservatives.

They may have had their differences but they were all united in the belief that Canada needed more freedom and less government.

They also understood the difference between right and wrong: they knew Trudeau’s socialistic vision for Canada was wrong; they knew communism was not only wrong but evil; they knew that to depend on big government to solve all our problems was definitely wrong.

Thanks to their help, the NCC was able to fight the fight for freedom. We fought for freedom through the courts, we fought for freedom through media campaigns, we fought for freedom through every avenue possible.

And of course, we were part of a much larger conservative movement. And we had our heroes and champions – people like Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom.

Reagan and Thatcher inspired, energized and helped to mobilize the conservative movement, they gave us hope that we could succeed and that our ideas could be implemented.

Using that inspiration, the NCC forged ahead with our fight, determined not to compromise our principles or ideals.

And guess what? The conservative movement started winning.

In 1988 we won the free trade debate; we saw the emergence of the Reform Party as a conservative oriented party, we saw the victory of Mike Harris and his Common Sense Revolution in Ontario, we saw in the mid-1990s the federal Liberals cutting taxes, reducing spending and balancing the budget and in 2006 we saw Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party form the government.

I like to think the NCC played an important role in these victories and that we helped to strengthen Canada’s conservative movement.

Ironically, however, the NCC also played a role in weakening the conservative movement.

How?

Well the NCC helped to propel the political career of Stephen Harper. He led the NCC from 1998 until 2001, and during that time I worked closely with him. I can tell you that in those days Stephen was a true small c conservative. More than that, he strongly believed that Canada needed a conservative alternative to the Liberal Party.

He didn’t buy into the notion that to be successful Conservatives needed to copy the Liberals.

So when he became Prime Minister many conservatives, myself included, were hopeful that Harper would be a conviction politician. He would be our “Reagan” or our “Thatcher”, somebody to inspire the movement and to promote a conservative agenda.

But that didn’t happen. In fact, Stephen often acted, talked and governed like a Liberal.

In short, he was not a “Reagan”, who inspired the conservative movement, but an “anti-Reagan” who has neutralized it.

Indeed, since he came to power the conservative movement has broken into three distinct factions.

The Harperites
First there are the Harperites. The Harperites are those conservatives who are extremely loyal to Prime Minister Harper and his government. So loyal, in fact, they will support his every measure, his every policy, his every law. If the Conservatives say big government is good, that deficits are good, that big spending is good, the Harperites will stand up and salute and declare that big government, deficits and big spending are good. They care more about hanging onto power than they do about advancing any kind of conservative agenda. And they have one commandment: “Thou shalt not criticize Stephen Harper.”

The Hoperites
The other faction, I call the Hoperites. They are conservatives who are disappointed and disillusioned with Prime Minister Harper, but they are hopeful that if he can only win a majority government, that if he can free himself from the shackles of minority government, the true Harper will emerge, he will implement a true conservative agenda, and all will be right with the world. They are motivated by hope and also by fear. Even if they are disappointed in Stephen, they fear a Liberal government would even be worse. Consequently, the Hoperites are cautious about “rocking the boat.”

The Helplessites
And finally the last faction are the Helplessites. These are conservatives who are disappointed and disillusioned with Prime Minster Harper, but unlike the Hoperites, they believe Harper is a lost cause. They believe he will never implement a conservative agenda even if he does win a majority. They believe Stephen has sold out his values for power. And this fills them with despair and a feeling of helplessness. They ask themselves, “If even Harper, who sprang from the conservative movement, won’t live up to his values, who will?” Harper was their last great hope, and he let them down. Sadly, these conservatives are leaving the field and giving up the fight. They believe conservatism will never prevail. They think our cause is lost. To my mind this is a tragedy.

These factions have emerged because “our guy” is in power and it has changed the movement.

Whereas 25 years ago conservatives were united; today we are divided; whereas 25 years ago conservatives were confident and determined, today we are cautious and timid; whereas 25 years ago conservatives cared more about principle, today many conservatives care more about partisanship.

This is not good for the movement.

We have lost our voice.

And that’s bad because it means Prime Minister Harper and his government are defining conservatism.

For the average Canadian, Conservative polices represent conservative thought. That means the average Canadian now associates conservatism with big spending, big government, deficits and with those oversized novelty cheques.

That’s not good for conservatism, that’s not good for the Conservative Party, that’s not good for the country.

So what can we do about it?

Well that leads me to the future of the conservative movement. What we conservatives need to do is push the “reset button.”

We need to stop focussing on political games and on partisan tactics and strategies and to focus more on winning the war of ideas.

We need, in short, to persuade Canadians as to why free markets are good, why less government is better than more government and why individual freedoms matter.

We need to win converts, especially among the young.

The good news is there are some groups out there doing exactly that. Advocacy groups like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and think tanks like the Fraser Institute and the Montreal Economic Institute and idea organizations like the Canadian Centre for Policy Studies.

I would encourage conservatives to support all these groups.

But each of needs to do more. Each of us needs to do what we can to sell conservatism to our friends our neighours our business associates.

I myself am trying to help win the war of ideas, through my website – the Libertas Post. This site is dedicated to promoting and preserving conservative ideas and values.

My inspiration is William F. Buckley, who in the 1950s when he was creating the National Review magazine, said he wanted to clear a patch in the jungle.

That’s what I want to do. I want to clear a patch in the ideological jungle so that one day, when a “conviction politician” emerges, there will be a landing space ready for him or her, a terrain where he or she can build a base.

Of course, the question remains: how do we win converts, how do we persuade Canadians as to the value of conservatism?

Well that’s a long discussion and I don’t have the time go to take on this important question.

But luckily, you can find the answer in my book, Loyal to the Core, now on sale at the back of the room.

Thank you very much.